VIENNA/TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran has failed to give a definitive answer to an EU demand it freeze sensitive nuclear activities or face referral to the UN Security Council for possible sanctions, a diplomat familiar with the talks says. [...] A Western diplomat close to the IAEA confirmed Iran had not delivered a letter, as it must, to announce the start date for the suspension and invite the UN agency to verify it. [...] But diplomats have said Iran was looking for the EU to sweeten the agreement by offering swift incentives, such as the immediate resumption of stalled trade talks, in return for agreeing to the enrichment freeze. "Iran wants something up front if it's going to suspend enrichment, not just promises. But the Europeans have refused," a diplomat said. Another sticking point in the talks concerns the preparation of uranium for the enrichment process. The EU wants all uranium conversion activities halted, while Tehran wants to continue with some conversion work.

Thursday, November 11, 2004

Suha Arafat played her cards well. In return for pulling the plug on Yasser - and handing over the secret accounts to the Palestinian National Authority - she will get $22 MILLION dollars A YEAR for the rest of her life. Thats a lot of money. More than the likes of Chirac and Mugabe will get when they retire. And more than she deserved.

But, it's only a small portion of the $4 BILLION estimated to have been stolen by Arafat - according to the Italian newspaper Corriere de la Sera. And according to Palestinian sources, payong her $22 MILLION a year was the only way for the Palestinian leaders to get their hands on the rest of the loot.

The fact is that democracy was founded by religious people, and this is because democracy is historically based on the first principal of Natural Law : that all humans are created equal and endowed by the Creator with inalienable rights. The State does not grant or define these rights; UNIVERSAL Human Rights exist a priori.

Most of atheists - and ALL of cultural relativists and moral relativists - are opponents to any notion of Universal Human Rights because they believe that Human Rights can only be defined culturally/relatively.

Such a view provides no universal moral basis for democracy or democratic revolutions; such a view can ONLY explain revolutions as struggles between competing power bases.

Which is exactly how Marxists, and moral relativists and cultural relativists explain history. And I would include most of the Left; the Left has become overwhelmingly redefined by its relativism. This fact has been true since at least post-WW2, when post-modernism took root in the Left.
This post-modernist Leftist creed cannot offer a way to universally abolish slavery or sexual inequality, or racism, or genocide EXCEPT if-and-when there is CONSENSUS from all the world's nations and cultures - which is precisely why these relativists value multilateralism and the UN so highly: it is the only place where international/cross-cultural consensus can be reached, and for relativists cross-cultural consensus is the only means to temporal universality.

This is also why they have so often stood back and done nothing as genocide has been openly committed - they can't act if they can’t forge a consensus.

But true morality is NOT on based on polls; it is NOT relative; it is Universal; it holds that all homo sapiens are entitled to the same rights because we are literally and figuratively ONE FAMILY.

And in this family we should not tolerate it when our relatives are systematically denied their innate Human Rights. It is our duty to help our brothers and sisters.

This concept was enshrined as part of the UN Charter when the UN adopted the Declaration of Universal Human Rights - at the time a liberal notion embraced by all of the West.

Since then, it has become regarded by the Left as a neo-con notion - an attempt by the West to culturally hegemonize the world.

This shift occurred around the time that the Left realized that the working-class in the West would not lead the proletarian revolution (because of the enbourgeoisment - [their term] - of the working class - or so the Left claims), and that the revolution would be led by the Third World - especially the former colonies of the West.

This is why the Left (the hub of of atheistic, post-modernist, cultural morally relativist political ideology) aggrandizes any Third World dictator who opposes the USA or the West, and abhors only dictators who are pro-USA or pro-West. To the extent that OBL and Saddam and Zarqawi can be seen as anti-USA/anti-West, the Left embraces them.

The actual extremely low living standards and lack of basic human rights and liberties that our brothers and sisters have in totalitarian regimes doesn't matter to the Left as long as the regime is anti-USA or anti-West - like North Korea, Vietnam, Cuba, Venezuela, Zimbabwe, Iran, Syria - etc...

The Left in the USA is no different in this regard than the Left in continental Europe, and this is why they have such great affinity. They're against Natural Law; Natural Law is antithetical to their core beliefs.

The UK has a deep tradition of Natural Law and this is why they are natural allies of the USA. Ditto Israel.

W should send BJ Clinton to be the emissary for the USA at Yasser's funeral in Cairo. After all, BJ met with Yasser more than any other foreign leader. Besides, sending an impeached president to attend a terrorist's state-sponsored funeral just seems fitting, doesn't it!? If BJ is unavailable, how about Teresa Heinz? If she can't sober up in time, how about Jimmy Carter? Or Howard Dean? Or Ramsey Clark? Then there's Tom Daschle, no!? NO, NO! I got it; I got it: Michael Moore!

I cried during a moment in Zell Miller's 1992 Madison Square Garden DNC speech, (when he nominated Clinton). The part when he told about how he was born in a little holler in northwest Georgia - a little town, a poor town, with no electricity or phones or running water. And one day, when he was still a little boy, and he was sitting on the porch of his family's home with his momma, she pointed down to the little dirt road that meandered through the bottom of the holler. And she said to him, "Zell, you see that road there? You can get ANYWHERE you want on that road!"

In case you didn't know: "Theo Van Gogh, a distant relative of the painter Vincent Van Gogh, was shot six times and almost decapitated with a butcher's knife in daylight as he cycled down a street in Amsterdam last week. A five-page letter declaring holy war and threatening death to the critics of Islam was stabbed to his chest with a knife."

A sarcastic letter was read as part of the funeral for Theo Van Gogh. HERE'S A SNIPPET:

"we will do our very best to learn more about your beliefs to prevent further misunderstanding", and apologising that the killing "had to happen in the middle of Ramadan".

The murder has opened a lot of Dutch eyes, it seems:

"Since the killing, several mosques have been attacked, an Islamic school has been bombed and, yesterday, Protestant churches in Utrecht and Amersfoort had petrol bombs thrown at them."

IMHO: It all started in Iran with the overthrow of the Shah - then, not long after that, came the fatwa against Rushdie - that was 25 years ago! And they kept attacking us - year after year, all over the world, but it wasn't until 9/11 that we fought back. We're fighting back. And the enemy - the Jihadoterrorists - don't like that one bit. And they're desperately trying to keep their Jihad going - and they keep using terror to do that. When they blew up the UN mission in Baghdad, and the UN split - their terror worked. The murder of Van Gogh is an attempt to get the entire nation of the Netherlands to cower and capitulate. Yesterday they kidnapped a few members of Allawi's family to try to get him to cower and capitulate on Falluja; he hasn't - yet. He wants to fight back - and now it seems that the Dutch want to fight back, too.

Obama may already be involved in a brewing legal scandal that may involve a breech of contract. According to famed gossip columnist CINDY ADAMS of the NY POST, Obama recently and abruptly reneged on a new contract from his longtime literary agent, and then bolted to BJ Clinton's agent - courtesy of Lewinsky job advisor Vernon Jordan.

Do you think this scandal is too small a matter to be called OBAMAGATE?

The French - who wouldn't send a single soldier to Iraq to help liberate the Iraqis from Saddam, or (once Saddam was ousted) to help secure Iraq for democracy - has had troops in Cote Ivoire for months, (ASIDE: with little positive effect - so what makes ANYONE think they could help out against the Jihadoterrorists in Iraq!?).

MAYBE THAT'S WHY THERE AREN'T ANY INTELLECTUALLY SUPERIOR PARISIANS TAKING TO THE BARRICADES TO PROTEST THIS FOREIGN MILITARY MISADVENTURE. ONE IN WHICH EIGHT FRENCH SOLDIERS HAVE ALREADY DIED. PERHAPS THIS IS WHY THERE ARE NO SIGNS PROCLAIMING: "NO BLOOD FOR CHOCOLATE!" AND WHY THERE IS NO OUTRAGE.

Evidently, the French value chocolate more than oil. Or moral consistency. Or "Universal Human Rights" - (to borrow an Eleanor Roosevelt phrase which was once held in reverenece by the UN ...).

So, this means that Richard Boucher - chief spokeman of the USA Department Of State - was right when he referred to France, Belgium, Germany, and Luxembourg - (who at the time were openly if not brazenly conspiring to foil U.S. efforts to oust Saddam, and were actively seeking to keep Saddam in power) - as "the chocolate makers."

Actually, Cote Ivoire has had something of a civil war going on since 2002; the north is under control of rebels. Oh...coincidently, that's where the Muslims live (50% of the Ivoirians population. Oh, get this: the government in the south has accused France of aiding the Muslim rebels. WHAT!?!?!? France and Jihadoterrorists working together!? Sacre BLEU! Not again!? Yes: AGAIN!

The civil war in Cote Ivoire may really be just another battlefield of the Global War against Jihadoterrorism. The Muslim rebels in the north (and their French allies) may be fighting for Jihad - and not merely control of the world's chocolate.

Jihadoterrorism (and NOT oil or cocoa!) is why we went into Iraq - and why we may - over the next two decades - have to invade other countries in other continents - like Cote Ivoire (or The Sudan, or Kenya, or Nigeria - all African countries which have had serious attacks inflicted on them by Jihadoterrorists).

And while I worry about the spread of the GWOT, Parisans worry about the price of chocolate.

I'm skeptical for two reasons: one, I don't trust Iran to abide by any deal any more than North Korea. Two, I don't trust the IAEA. The IAEA has a track record of FAILURE.

Though you wouldn't know that by reading any of the news articles in the Old Media. All the articles in the Old Media refer to the IAEA as the "nuclear watchdog" group of the UN. Calling the IAEA a "watchdog" is a stupid cliche which prolongs a myth - or a lie. WHY? Here:

(1) The IAEA entirely missed Saddam's 1980's nuclear program which was only two years from a making bomb in 1991. ONLY our victory in the first Gulf War prevented Saddam from getting as nuke.

(2) The IAEA entirely missed the North Korean urnanium enrichment progam - it was discovered by the USA.

(3) The IAEA entirely missed the Libyan Program that was only discovered when the USA/CIA broke the AQKHAN nuclear arms smuggling ring - which the IAEA had also completely overlooked.

This is NOT the record of an international watchdog. This is the record of a UN lapdog. They are either incompetent or compromised. We mustn't farm out our national security to UN agencies whose track records are as abysmal as the IAEA's.Or to the EU. Or Iran. National security based on the assurances of the EU and the IAEA and Iran is not real security; it is really nothing more than a false sense of security. If we rely on them, then one day the real dog - a nuclear Iran - will come back to bite us. I'd rather trust the USMC and the USN and the USAF with our security than the IAEA the EU or the UN. Wouldn't you!?

Sunday, November 07, 2004

Polipundit linked to a great map of the elections results; this one is in NOT merely by color (red versus blue), but also has a "3D" effect which amplifies the fact that the Left-wing Democrat Party is really NOT a national party, but ONLY the majority party of America's biggest cities. This fact is further buttressed by a poll in today's NYTIMES by Edison Media Research; this poll revealed that the Democrat Party got 60% of the votes cast in cities with over 500,000 people - the ONLY size city or town that they carried!

This map (and this tally in this poll) indicates not just where the Democrats ARE NOW, but where the GOP must take the fight over the next few years if we are to finally irradicate the failed politics and policies of the Left-wing.

We must take the fight to the cities - and we can do this by merely articulating AN URBAN AGENDA FOR THE NEW MILLENIUM which is based on the core principles of the GOP: empowerment, opportunity, and ownership.

(1-a) Push for school chocie and school vouchers. These empower parents and disempower the teacher's unions (and other unions - like custodians and principals) which are bleeding school budgets without improving the academic results. (1 -b) We should also make all school systems accountable to mayors - not school boards - so that there is polical accounatbility for results. We do this by making federal aid to schools conditional on these two changes.

(2) Privatize public housing. This uplifts the working poor and makes them independent stakeholders, instead of people dependent on the state. Jack Kemp floated this idea 20 years ago; it's time to dust it off and implement it - perhaps by bringing him back as HUD Secretary! We need to ramp up low cost loans for this purpose and dispatch co-op advisors and incentvize local general contractors to underatke much needed improvements to these newly privately held assets.

(3) Incentivize economic activity by cutting taxes on new businesses in the cities - and make this a federal/state/local partnership by making the federal portion of tax incentives dependent on equal particpation of the state and ther city. This would be a twist on revenue sharing; this would be "tax-cut sharing." This would incentivize the states and cities to "buy into" supply-side economics (which have been proven to work).

BOTTOM-LINE: BLUE cities all have higher unemployment, and lower high school graduation rates, and more crime than RED counties. This is in part due to several decades of failing Left-wing policies foisted on the the cities by the Democrat machines merely to get votes.

The aggressive 3-point GOP program for the cities will end the decline of the cities, improve the lives of city-dwellers, and end the Left-wing Demcorat Party's cynical and demogoguic stranglehold on the cities.